Phil – Great calls yesterday, you were in top form. As I was reading your postings, I had hindsight of what the day brought. The calls were uncanny!

Jfawcett

I am an investor, not a trader. The information at Phil's World is top-notch and always relevant. It is great to see your website thriving.

Prof

Phil – In the event of a mkt meltdown, which of the indices, in your opinion do you think has the most potential for % move down. I'm looking at call options on SDS and the DXD. Any thoughts? Ideas?
Thanks .. and thanks for being a great teacher! I've learned so much in only a month!

Louis631

Peter D, Just a note of thanks. Eight weeks ago, I entered my first RUT strangles, when the RUT was at 625. Tomorrow, I will let them expire, with the RUT at 625 (give or take). I didn't care when the RUT went to 650, nor when it dropped to 590. Easiest, no touch money I've made in a long time.

Judahbenhur

Phil, Passed a milestone today since joining 2 months ago. 25% of my account is in buy/writes, bull call spreads and disaster hedges. A majority of the trades were taken directly from your ideas or someone else`s contributions. Some were daytrades that became spreads.
That part of my account is up 30% as of today. I don`t worry about it, or mess with it much, did a few rolls etc.
Rest of the account is there to day trade, cover the writes and take advantage of opportunities.
Thanks to everyone who contributes here, what a sweet way to trade, so many opportunities.

Ben1Be

Thanks Phil, I have adjusted my position by getting rid of the IYF puts, and selling the FAZ puts. You have so many of these awesome little tricks in your playbook that it really amazes me. I toally love your analogy by the way: Do you want insurance that you have to pay for, or do you want insurance that pays you?

Craigzooka

Phil, I'm up 34x what I paid in fees for your service, and that only counts the trades I didn't think of myself. Thanks!

Barfinger

Being on this board is better than successfully completing the Times crossword. Phil's panoply of comments manage to excite, illuminate, frustrate, exasperate, confuse, enlighten, outrage, invigorate and stupefy (and that's par for the morning session only!). But goddammit, it's addictive, informative and when it all goes right extremely profitable.

Winston

New member/1st time posting: Thanks Phil and Pharm for the rec on TOS. I've emailed Scott to get myself setup so I hope to hear back soon. As a newbie on PSW for a month now, I've been readin' and readin' and readin'. Gonna start paper-trading for a while. See how I do before putting a single dime into it. New at options but seems like this is the best training and educational platform out there.
I'm a long-time mortgage broker who got too involved with real estate investing. LOVED your article, Phil, on mortgage interest scams. Right on!! Let me know if and how I can contribute back to the community here. Cheers! - Mark

Mark

Gel1…..I've been here 6 months, mostly watching and learning. Lots of smart people on the site and I've learned a lot from Phil and many others. //// Inflan - I have to trump your sentiments regarding the wisdom of the board. I have to thank Phil and the many contruibutors for a 80% profit for 2009. I have learned a lot and am still learning ( even occasionally about political issues - ha! )

Iflantheman & Gel1

As a fellow "low-end" investor I like Phil's Buy/Write strategy on solid stocks. Before I came here I loved to try to "figure things out" with very little success "TRYING TO FIGURE THINGS OUT"! I traded too much and fell in love with stocks that "should have done" what they didn't do. Now a majority of my accounts are in Buy/Writes suggested here or cash (waiting for a better time for more Buy/Writes). I use 15-20% of my total holding to short term trade and hedge. This is manageable with my full time job as a business owner. I have found Phil's system a more discipline way to achieve the returns I want without relying on my ability (more like inability to "figure things out").

DCalrk41

Phil I have been applying your arsenal (matresses, Edz plays, Ugl verticals etc.) to my gold holdings . So a big thank you for "teaching me how to fish" rather than just giving me the fish...

Magret

You guys gotta give it to phil–the voice of reason yesterday, last nite and this morning.

Corleone

Best year I've ever had…sitting on a 52% YTD return. I would also echo Nat's shout out for Phil's talent. I've been a member for the 6 years or so. Just stay true to the strategy I've learned over the years of selling premium, keeping the bulk of my portfolio in long-term buy writes ("armchair" trades).

JJennings

Blessings, ALL: So we have completed two months of 2015. So far it has been a good ride with my PSW all short put portfolio showing a 15.73% gain with $83K in profits harvested in 2015.

IHS4GOD

Thanks for you guidance – Your "student" will be passing on the McMuffins and having Lobster dinners tonight!

Aquila

Thank you Phil we appreciate all the work you put in to teach us valuable lessons about investing.

Phil/ Thanks to your obsessive bearish anxiety over the last few weeks, I made money on the long side this month, phased gradually to bearish, came in net short today and managed to make money both long and short all week, ending today [and each day this week] in the green. I don't know how you do it, but thank you.

Zeroxzero

Phil - DIA 107 Calls. As suggested I am taking the money and running to home depot for some shelter supplies! This is the grand finale of several successful trades from you through this roller-coster and as you have further suggested it is time for me to sit back and relax in cash. May even be able to talk my wife into the premium membership after these intelligent trades in a stupid market.

DOStrade

Thank you Nantucket. It is hard to be a complete beginner in the market with this complicated, fast moving, and very advanced group. Phil is the Great One, but the membership is absolutely amazing! Had I known this ahead I would probably log in as "awe struck" everyday.

Coke

Thank God for Phil.
A few months ago (April) I didn´t even know what hedging was, and someone recommended I should check out some of Phil´s plays, especially on the retirement portfolio. When I first started to read it, none of it made a blind bit of sense to me, but I stuck with it and gradually began to work through some of the trades to see how it worked. Now I am putting on 5:1 SPY backspreads combined with bear put spreads, entering and leaving positions after consulting the VIX, and engaging in other esoteric maneuvers that are keeping my portfolio above water.

jmm1951

SPY/Phil, I took a big swing on January 26th following your advice to another member and bought 1615 contracts of Mar 185/190 BCS on SPY that will expire ITM today paying $290,700 on the $500k bet. I thought it might be fun to see what a winning trade looks like. Great call on your part and looking back it seems pretty obvious.

Sibe14 (premium)

Greetings Phil,
I am an Economist at Harvard and some of my colleagues and I would like to let you know that we follow your posts on SA, and find your analysis refreshing, rigorous, and acute. Great work! Though many of us (including myself) have our work covered in the Wall St Journal, in many ways your macro commentary is more fearless and accurate than what is generally found in that venerable publication.
Kind regards,
Daniel

Daniel

Phil, you are the man. My positions in ABX and CLF are up massively this year, and doing very nicely with USO and UNG. TSR is another winner. Just waiting for the TSLA short now!

Rookie IRA Investor

Phil has some great insight into the market. He's given me a different perspective on the market and I know I'm a better trader/investor because of it.
I've been trading options since the late 80's and Phil is right. Unless you know what is going to happen (how can you, unless you have insider information), then do what the smart money does - be the house. Remember guys, we're allowed to sell options. If you're afraid to be short, then do a spread to limit your liability. When I think about the money I've made and lost on options, a good approximation is that I win 30% of the time when I do a straight buy; I win about 70% of the time when I do a spread; I win nearly 90% of the time when I sell naked.

Autolander

Phil - Thanks for the welcoming gift of the POT at a buck
Just paid for this month and my membership is not even 24 hours old!
looking forward to many more - bk

Bjkeck

I'd like to wish Phil and everyone else that contributes to this board a very Merry Christmas and happy New Year. The wealth of knowledge on here is incredible, and it has greatly contributed to my understanding of markets, politics, and the world in general. This year was when Phil's teachings all seemed to click in place, and my portfolio's performance shot up, and for that I am very grateful. Thank you!

Palotay

Hey I just did a nice options trade on LL for $800 (50%) gain thanks to this site, so… not bad for my first day! An hour of reading you guys and I already paid for two months subscription! Thank you!

lchu

BTW Phil, I wanted to relate a conversation I had with my business partner yesterday. I told him that I have been much more relaxed about my investments ever since I joined your site. It's funny how a 15-20% cushion does to your nerves. My returns have increased dramatically and my risk diminished. Many thanks for the guidance and patience. Good thing I am doing better financially as you might have increased my life expectancy as well!

Pedro Amaral of the Cleveland Fed wrote an excellent piece in today’s “Economic Trends” on the state of the recovery and the cause of the slower than normal recovery. His conclusions are exactly in-line with my own: we are in a balance sheet recession that is largely caused by the implosion of the household balance sheet:

“The chart below shows the behavior of households’ (and nonprofit organizations’) net worth in the last six recessions. It is apparent that in the last two the damage to households’ balance sheets was both deeper with and more protracted than in the previous episodes. What was behind the drop in the latest recession? During this period, liabilities were roughly constant, so the drop happened because of declines in asset values caused by the real-estate collapse and the subsequent depreciation in financial assets. In the 2000 recession the drop was due to the stock market collapse. In contrast, in the twin recessions of the early 1980s, net worth never decreased, and in the early 1990s it dropped only about 2 percent.”

“The drops in household net worth help explain the protracted recoveries after the last two recessions. Personal consumption expenditures are the single biggest component of GDP at around 70 percent. If there is to be a solid recovery, consumption needs to increase at a substantially higher rate than the 1.7 percent it has averaged over the last year. But households are not going to start consuming at substantially higher rates until they have fixed their balance sheet problems. This is why the savings rate has been so high lately: Households are working hard at improving their wealth to income ratios at the expense of consumption. In previous recessions, since net worth did not fall by a substantial amount, this was not a problem. As incomes started growing again, consumption followed suit. Right now, an important part of that income growth is being channeled to savings. As the chart above illustrates, net worth is still well below prerecession levels and, barring an increase in asset prices (real-estate prices or stock market prices), the only way to increase it is by saving more and consuming less, further delaying the recovery.”

His conclusion, clearly, is similar to my own. We will not see above trend growth until the consumer balance sheet is…

Chatter of a “recovery” is back on the table after the markets schizophrenic actions in recent days. It’s amazing how quickly sentiment can change from tremendously bearish to tremendously bullish. Interesting lot us human beings are….Highlighted in this “recovery” talk was the “better than expected” jobs data. Jobless claims were “better than expected”, ISM manufacturing employment data hit news highs (although services, which is a MUCH larger portion of the economy declined) and the non-farm payrolls report capped off the week with a “better than expected” report. But if we take a step back here and look at the big picture you’ll actually notice that there has been ZERO recovery in the labor market. Unemployment has actually deteriorated when compared to the end of past recessions. Without a recovery in the labor markets I think it’s impossible to say that the economy is rebounding. As of now, the outlook remains negative.

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve released its manufacturing survey for August, which suggests economic contraction and may lead the Federal Reserve to promote additional stimulus measures. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Outlook survey or simply “Philly Fed” for August plummets to a negative reading of 7.7 versus economists’ surveys of +7.0. This marks the third consecutive decline after the outlook survey peaked in May at 21.40.

Behind the headlines, components that represent economic growth were especially weak. Specifically, New Orders dropped further into negative territory to -7.1 from a prior month’s reading of -4.3. Inventories fell from +4.5 in July to -11.6 while the Number of Employees component dropped from 4.0 to an August reading of -2.7.

Inflation expectations should remain subdued and keep bond yields in check as price pressures fall, judging by some of the Philly Fed components. Prices Paid dropped from +13.1 in July to +11.8. In addition, the Prices Received component continues to drive deeper into negative territory. The Prices Received component fell to -12.5 following prints of -6.5 and -8.4 in June and July, respectively.

The Philadelphia Fed numbers carry significant weight since the index is heavily correlated to the ISM manufacturing index and the index of industrial production, which both measure the health of U.S. economic activity. ISM Manufacturing should it fall below 50 in the coming months may lead the Federal Reserve to act in providing stimulus measures via Quantitative Easing.

The number of people in the U.S. filing for employment benefits increased last week according to the Department of Labor. Initial Jobless Claims for the week ending August 14 jumped to 500k people. The number of people who recently became unemployed and are now accessing government benefits was revised upward in the previous week by four thousand to 488k. The increase, which the highest reading since November of 2009, highlights the beginning of deterioration of the employment landscape in the last few weeks as economists were expecting a reading of 478k. Furthermore, the 4-week moving average, which is used to smooth out volatility to establish a better reading of trends, continues to inch higher to 482,500 people and is on the higher end of the recent range of 450-500k that has been established since last November. With this in mind, the number is…

"We have met the enemy and he is us," Pogo used to say. Well, we’ve also now met the recovery, and he is ugly.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported today that U.S. real GDP grew at an annual rate of 2.4% during the second quarter. The latest GDP numbers bring our Econbrowser Recession Indicator Index for 2010:Q1 down to 5.4%. This index is based on a very simple pattern-recognition algorithm for characterizing economic recessions. It is not a prediction of where the economy is headed, but rather a backward-looking assessment of where the economy stood as of the first quarter, using today’s 2010:Q2 data release to help inform that assessment.

University of Oregon Professor Jeremy Piger maintains a related index which has been at or below 1% for each month so far of 2010, while the most recent value calculated by U.C. Riverside Professor Marcelle Chauvet‘s algorithm is 7.8%. All three approaches agree that the economy remains in a growth phase that began in the third quarter of last year. A subsequent economic downturn would be described as the beginning of a new recession rather than a continuation of the previous recession.

*The plotted value for each date is based solely on information as it would have been publicly available and reported as of one quarter after the indicated date, with 2010:Q1 the last date shown on the graph. Shaded regions (with the exception of 2007:Q4-2009:Q2) represent dates of NBER recessions, which were not used in any way in constructing the index, and which were sometimes not reported until two years after the date. The most recent recession is shown on the graph as ending in 2009:Q2 as implied by the index; as of this writing the NBER has not yet assigned an end date for this recession.

But a pretty recovery it’s not. The economy has grown by 3.2% in real terms over the last year, about the average annual historical growth rate since World War II. But since recessions are characterized by below-average growth, expansions should typically exhibit above-average growth, and particularly in the first year of an expansion we often see very strong growth as a result of the positive contribution…

Some Thoughts on Deflation
The Super-Trend Puzzle
The Elements of Deflation
Maine, New York, Turks and Caicos, and Europe

The debate over whether we are in for inflation or deflation was alive and well at the Agora Symposium in Vancouver this this week. It seems that not everyone is ready to join the deflation-first, then-inflation camp I am currently resident in. So in this week’s letter we look at some of the causes of deflation, the elements of deflation, if you will, and see if they are in ascendancy. For equity investors, this is an important question because, historically, periods of deflation have not been kind to stock markets. Let’s come at this week’s letter from the side, and see if we can sneak up on some answers.

Even on the road (and maybe especially on the road, as I get more free time on airplanes) I keep up with my rather large reading habit. This week, the theme in various publications was the lack of available credit for small businesses, with plenty of anecdotal evidence. This goes along with the surveys by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which continue to show a difficult credit market.

Businesses are being forced to scramble for needed investments, generally having to make do with cash flow and working out of profits. This is an interesting quandary for government policy makers, as 75% of the "rich" that will see the Bush tax cuts go away are small businesses.

There was a great graphic (that I now cannot find) showing that all net new jobs of the past two decades have come from small businesses and start-ups. And yet as of now, when structural employment is over 10% (if you count those who were considered to be in the work force just a few months ago), we want to reduce the availability of revenues to the very people we want to be hiring new workers, and who are cash-starved as it is.

It is not just that taxes will go from 35% to just under 40%. It is the increase in Medicare taxes coming down the pike, too. We are taking money from private hands, where it has the potential…

There’s a reason economics is called the dismal science, and weeks like this just give it further meaning. In economics, there is what you see and what you don’t. This week we are going to examine the headline data we all see and then take a look for what most observers do not see. Then we’ll try to think about what it all really means. With employment, housing, and the ISM numbers, there is a lot to cover. And this letter will print out longer than usual, as there are a lot of charts. Warning: remove sharp objects from the vicinity and pour yourself your favorite adult beverage. This does not make for fun reading.

Some Really Dismal Numbers

The unemployment numbers this morning were just bad, even though the spin doctors were out in force. Of course we knew that because of census workers being laid off the number would be negative, and it was, down 125,000. But the "bright spot" we were told about was that private payrolls came in at 83,000 new jobs. Let’s look at what you did not see or hear.

First, last month’s dismal (there’s that word again) private job-creation number was revised down from 41,000 to 33,000. So in two months, total private job creation is 116,000 jobs. We need 125,000 jobs per month just to keep up with population growth.

But it is worse than that. The headline number we look at is from the Establishment Survey. That means they call up existing businesses they know about and ask them how many people are working for them, etc. One of the first things I do when the employment numbers come out is look at the birth/death assessment on the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) web site.

For new readers, the birth/death assessment has nothing to do with people dying, but rather is the BLS’s attempt to estimate the number of new businesses that have been created or have "died" within the last month, and they use these numbers to adjust the employment total. They use historical, seasonal numbers to create a model from which they make these estimates. There is nothing conspiratorial about the…

When former Morgan Stanley chief Asian economist Andy Xie comments on the United States, he focuses on a bailout nation keen on perpetuating a bubble economy predicated on malinvestment and overconsumption. In this he sees parallels with Japan and its long malaise.

Japan has experienced two decades of economic stagnation since the collapse of the infamous bubble it suffered in the 1980s. The most popular explanations are that Tokyo wasn’t aggressive enough in stimulating the economy after the bubble burst, or that it withdrew its stimulus too early – or both. This line of thinking is popular among elite economists in the US, where it is rarely challenged. But few Japanese analysts buy it…

The argument to "stimulate until prosperity returns" is popular because it doesn’t hurt anyone in the short term. When a central bank prints money, its nasty consequence — inflation — takes time to show up. When a government spends borrowed money, repayment is in the future. Nobody feels the pain now. Indeed, when debt is sufficiently long-dated, nobody alive need feel the pain. So analysts who advocate stimulus are popular with politicians because it sounds like a free lunch. Japan’s tale is just a nice story that seems to support the argument…

Japan has run up the national debt equal to 200% of GDP — the greatest Keynesian stimulus program in history — all in the name of stimulating the economy back to health. It has failed miserably. Japan’s nominal GDP is about the same as when the stimulus began. Those who advocated the policy blame Japan’s failure on either the stimulus being too small or not being sustained for long enough – that is, the dosage, not the medicine itself, was at fault.

The bankruptcy of Japan Airlines is a sobering reminder of what is still wrong with Japan. It stayed with unprofitable routes for years without its creditors or shareholders being able to do anything about it. And by making credit cheap and easy, the stimulus prolonged the airline’s business model — actually,

Yesterday I posted an article by RICK BOOKSTABER, The Gold Bubble, in the Favorites. Having no opinion on the short or long term movement in the price of gold, I thought Rick’s article was thought-provoking, as he reasonably questioned the mass and loudish flow of money into gold investments.

Zero Hedge also posted the article, with a more critical introduction. I then perused ZH’s comment section to find a lot of animosity towards Rick’s opinion, even directed at his character (he works for the SEC!). The highly emotional tone surprised me, indicating a core belief was being challenged, as opposed to the fun and discovery of an intellectual debate. (Maybe this is typical in comment sections.)

Anyway, in this article, Nico Isaac also questions the faith many people have placed in GOLD as the next safety net against the ruin of our financial system.

Gold: Best Supporting Role In Economic Downturns? Think Again

Gold’s safe-haven status is based on hype, not history

Courtesy of EWI, by Nico Isaac

As I sat down to watch the Oscar pre-show on Sunday night, March 7, one word was repeatedly used to describe the celebrity starlets and their designer duds: GOLD. Gold bustiers and gold lame skirts, shiny gun-metal dresses and glittery sequined gowns all basking in the golden shadow of the final golden statue.

Everywhere you look, from the Red Carpet to Wall Street, gold is definitely in "fashion." As for why, one word comes to mind: safe-haven. See, according to the mainstream financial experts, the more unstable the global economy, the greater the appeal for the precious metal.

And, with a staggering 17% unemployment rate in the United States, alongside slumping real estate sales, Eurozone weakness, the Greece debt debacle, and so on — the only thing going up is gold’s supposed disaster premium. Here, take these recent news items for example:

Steve Liesman once again stunned me with his lack of understanding of matters economic today, when he commented that "in all recessions since 1970 at least the original part of it (recovery) has been jobless."

Yes, Steve, but why is any of this a surprise? What part of this graph isn’t instantly obvious to anyone with more than two firing neurons in their head?

That’s credit and population growth normed to a base of 1970. Population went from roughly 205 million to roughly 304 million during that time, a 50% increase.

Outstanding consumer credit went from $128 billion to $2,525 billion, or a 1,973% increase – and this is only consumer credit, ignoring mortgages, financial firm credit, business credit, commercial real estate and of course government debt!

Why are we not seeing "robust" economic growth when we exit recessions? Why is there no real hiring going on? Why can we not have a robust economic recovery? Why are we are replacing good jobs with "McJobs" that pay half as much – or less? And more importantly, where did all the "so-called prosperity" really come from, especially from 1994 on?

In each and every instance of recession from 1970 onward we have "pulled forward" more and more demand and created fake "prosperity" through the creation of ever more debt that we have goaded consumers to take on. By doing so we have crippled the ability of the economy to grow, redirecting as much money as possible to a handful of people and firms (commonly known as "banks" and other "financial companies") instead of directing that effort and money into productive enterprises such as building cars, television sets and similar items.

THIS time though the recession didn’t come from "ordinary business conditions"; it instead happened because the credit carrying capacity among both consumers and businesses hit the wall – they could no longer make the debt service payments and started to default.

It began with "subprime" mortgages but that was nothing other than the first "hiss" of trouble out of the pressure vessel as the structural integrity of the fraud-laced credit system, where "capacity to pay" became a bad joke, had begun to disintegrate.

We pushed the envelope of fraudulent credit creation and the sale of fraudulently-underwritten debt too far – and it blew up in our collective

Regular readers know that I am a huge fan of Richard Russell’s work. For those who aren’t familiar with Russell, he is the author of The Dow Theory letters. Obviously, he is a student of Dow Theory (perhaps professor is more appropriate). Most importantly though Russell is about as experienced an investor as you’ll find on the planet. He has lived through cycles that no one else can even remember.

I like to think that the market works on a different clock from the rest of the world. Economic cycles are often long and drawn out. It can be hard for humans to comprehend economic cycles because the length of an economic cycle is not based in years or months. It can literally work on its own clock. The current deleveraging cycle is particularly frustrating for investors because these types of recessions tend to be long and drawn out unlike your average 8-16 month recession. A full economic cycle can be anywhere from 5 years to 25 years from peak to trough. Humans, particularly investors, have trouble seeing past the next 5 to 25 minutes. It’s safe to say that Mr. Russell has seen more cycles than anyone and his educational and priceless commentary is evidence of this. I’ve included some of his notes from this latest week and highly recommend his newsletter. His ability to grasp the big picture is truly unmatched:

Question — Russell, you seem to think this is going to be a world-class bear market. Why do you think that?

Answer — The US and its people have been borrowing and leveraging for decades or ever since WW II. There’s never been a true correction in the economy, although there have been corrections in the stock market (1973-74 and 1957-58). Consumer buying makes up 70% of the Gross National Product of the US. For the first time in decades, US consumers are dealing with massive unemployment. This is scaring them and causing them to cut back in their buying and now they are actually saving. Fear is the strongest of all human emotions, and US consumers are finally dealing with naked fear. I believe this fear will bring on years of saving and a long period

European carmakers are facing what could turn out to be a major crisis cooked up by EU regulators, and it’s all about EVs and emissions. The former are supposed to help solve the problem with the latter, but the likelihood of success is uncertain because there are literally millions of variables: car buyers.

Scientists say the rules change in a cosmic “black hole” at what astrophysicists call the event horizon. How do they know that? Not by observation, since what happens in there is, by definition, un-seeable. They infer it from the surroundings, which say that the mathematics of the universe as we understand them change at the event horizon.

Or maybe not. One theory says we are all inside a black hole right now. That could possibly explain a few things about central bank policy.
...

Crude Oil has been trading in a fairly narrow range since mid-August – between $52 and $57 ppb. Our Adaptive Dynamic Learning (ADL) predictive modeling system suggested the downside price move in late July/early August was expected and the current support aligns very well with our ADL predictions of higher price rotation throughout most of September/October. Please take a minute to review the original research post below :

Kroger Co (NYSE: KR) reported second-quarter results that came in better than expected. The earnings beat may have been overshadowed by management's decision to remove its prior guidance of $400 million in incremental EBIT by fiscal 2021.

President Trump said the Dow would be 10,000 points higher if it was not for the FED. In truth if the Dow breaks to new all time highs the next stop is 38,000 and he may be proven correct. Is there an election on?

Of course who knows? But lets continue.

The fundamentals behind this may be:

A good deal with China.

The FED turning on easy money with further rate cuts (very strange with a market near all time highs). FOMC Sept 17th well tell us more.

The above turbo charging stock buy backs.

Off shore money running out of foreign equity markets in to US markets (see note1).

Note1: Of course this has happened before, one particular time was just before O...

As evidence of cannabis’ many benefits mounts, so does the interest from the global pharmaceutical industry, known as Big Pharma. The entrance of such behemoths will radically transform the cannabis industry—once heavily stigmatized, it is now a potentially game-changing source of growth for countless co...

For most people, the purpose of investing is to build up enough wealth to allow you to retire. In general, that's usually enough money to reliably generate a year's worth of your average income, each year into your retirement so that that, plus you Social Security, should be enough to pay your bills without having to draw down on your principle.

Unfortunately, as the last decade has shown us, we can't count on bonds to pay us more than 3% and the average return from the stock market over the past 20 years has been erratic - to say the least - with 4 negative years (2000, 2001, 2002 and 2008) and 14 positives, though mostly in the 10% range on the positives. A string of losses like we had from 2000-02 could easily wipe out a decades worth of gains.

Phil has a chapter in a newly-released eBook that we think you’ll enjoy.

In My Top Strategies for 2017, Phil's chapter is Secret Santa’s Inflation Hedges for 2017.

This chapter isn’t about risk or leverage. Phil present a few smart, practical ideas you can use as a hedge against inflation as well as hedging strategies designed to assist you in staying ahead of the markets.

Note: The material presented in this commentary is provided for
informational purposes only and is based upon information that is
considered to be reliable. However, neither PSW Investments, LLC d/b/a PhilStockWorld (PSW)
nor its affiliates
warrant its completeness, accuracy or adequacy and it should not be relied upon as such. Neither PSW nor its affiliates are responsible for any errors or omissions or for results obtained from the use of this information. Past performance, including the tracking of virtual trades and portfolios for educational purposes, is not necessarily indicative of future results. Neither Phil, Optrader, or anyone related to PSW is a registered financial adviser and they may hold positions in the stocks mentioned, which may change at any time without notice. Do not buy or sell based on anything that is written here, the risk of loss in trading is great.

This material is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any security or other financial instrument. Securities or other financial instruments mentioned in this material are not suitable for all investors. Any opinions expressed herein are given in good faith, are subject to change without notice, and are only intended at the moment of their issue as conditions quickly change. The information contained herein does not constitute advice on the tax consequences of making any particular investment decision. This material does not take into account your particular investment objectives, financial situations or needs and is not intended as a recommendation to you of any particular securities, financial instruments or strategies. Before investing, you should consider whether it is suitable for your particular circumstances and, as necessary, seek professional advice.